And the capture wasn’t half bad, either.

Of course, he didn’t have much experience past that—nor did he want it.

“Well?” she demanded. Like if he didn’t get on topic quick, she was going to start tapping her foot—and her next move was going to be knocking his block off for wasting her time.

“I’ve come for you.”

Wait, that came out wrong. He’d meant to say that he’d come to see her. Talk to her. Look at her up close.

But those four words were also the truth. He wanted to know what she tasted like, what she felt like underneath him, what—

She crossed her arms over her chest. “Look, I’m going to be honest with you.”

Lane smiled a little. “I like honesty.”

“I don’t think you’re going to feel that way when I’m done with you.”

Okaaaaay, now he was getting hard—and funny, that wouldn’t have bothered him with the kinds of women he usually toyed with. Standing in front of this particular female with an urge to rearrange himself in his pants, however, seemed kind of … tacky.

“I’m going to spare you a lot of wasted time here.” She kept her voice low, like she didn’t want to be overheard, but that didn’t detract from the power of her message. “I am not, and never will be, interested in someone like you. You are nothing but an entitled bad boy who gets off causing chaos with the opposite sex. That stuff was boring when I was a fifteen-year-old, and considering that I’m closing in on thirty this year, I’m even less attracted to it. So do us both a favor—go to the country club, find one of those interchangeable blond women by the pool, and turn them into your twenty-minute StairMaster. You are not going to get that from me.”

He blinked like an idiot.

And he supposed the fact that he was so shocked that anyone would call him on his behavior proved her point.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going home. I’ve been here working since seven a.m.—”

Snapping out his hand, he took hold of her arm as she turned away. “Wait.”

“Excuse me?” She glanced down at the contact and back up into his eyes. “Unless you have something related to the flowers in this garden, you have nothing to say to me.”

“You’re not going to give me a chance to defend myself? You’re just going to play judge and jury—”

“You are not serious—”

“Have you always been so prejudicial?”

She stepped out of his grip. “Better that than naive. Especially with a man like you.”

“Don’t believe everything you’ve seen in the papers—”

“Oh, please. I don’t need to read about it—I’ve seen it firsthand. Two of them left yesterday morning out the back of the house. The night you came here, you brought a redhead home from a bar. And then they say when you went for your annual physical on Wednesday, you came back with a hickey on your neck—presumably from when the woman asked you to turn your head and cough?” She cut him off again, putting her palm out to his face. “And before you think I’m keeping this happy catalog of conquests because of some latent attraction to you, it’s because the women on staff keep track of these things and won’t stop talking about them.”

“You want to give me a word in edgewise?” he countered. “Or are you good just keeping this conversation going on your own. Jesus, and you think I’m stuck-up.”

“What?”

“You think I’m entitled? Well, you’re putting me in the shade on that one, sweetheart.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’ve decided you know everything about me just because a bunch of other people, who also don’t know me, are talking about things they know nothing about. That’s pretty damn arrogant.”

“Which is not the same as entitled.”

“You really want to argue Websters’s dictionary with me?”

Right, the fact that they were bickering should not have been a total flippin’ turn-on, but holy hell it was. For every lob she tossed at him, he found himself looking at her body less and focusing on her eyes more—and that made her even sexier.

“Listen, can we just be done here?” she said. “I have to be back at the crack of dawn, and this conversation is not as important as the sleep I need to get.”

This time when she turned away, he stopped her with his voice. “I saw you out by the pool yesterday.”

She glared at him over her shoulder. “Yes, and I was pulling weeds. You got a problem with that?”

“You were staring at me. I saw you.”

Touché, he thought as she blinked.

“I was in the pool,” he whispered as he took a step closer to her. “And you liked what you saw, didn’t you. Even though you hate who you think I am, you like what you saw.”

“You’re delusional—”

“Honesty. You were the one to bring it up first.” He leaned in, turning his head to the side as if he were going to kiss her. “So do you have the guts to be honest?”

Her hands fiddled with the collar of her Easterly polo. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Liar.” He smiled a little. “Why do you think I stayed out there so long? It was because of you. I liked that you were watching my body.”

“You’re crazy.”